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Walking the plank
I have been most remiss at keeping up to date with the beer turnover at the Open Gate Brewery. I finally put things to rights a couple of weeks ago and dropped in on a Friday evening. It's almost half...
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Bockbier bugbear
This month's Session is being hosted by what I think is the world's longest-running beer blog, Jon Abernathy's Oregon-based The Brew Site. Our topic is bock, which is a bit of a four-letter word for...
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The Full Vermonty
New Englandish IPA. It's the style of the moment, though in the fast-moving world of beer fashion it may well have fallen out of favour in the handful of days between this post being written and...
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A new dawn
It was a dark and frosty midwinter morning when I arrived in Andrew Jorgensen's car to Boyne Brewhouse. Andrew is head brewer at the brewery outside Drogheda and he had invited me along to witness a...
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Expanding horizons
We're hitting the half-way point of my Alltech Brews & Food 2017 round-up, and a few new releases from established breweries to begin with.I don't think Aidan from Galway Hooker took well to me...
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In the mix
Today it's the last of the Irish beers I tried during the Alltech Brews & Food festival in Dublin a couple of weeks ago. There really was something for everyone in the range presented.Witbier fans...
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Distinguished guests
Concluding this week's run through the beers of Alltech Brews & Food 2017 with the ones from abroad and afar. The centrepiece of the weekend is the Dublin Craft Cup, where a champion beer and cider...
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Put up your dukes
Late last year, Eight Degrees announced that their winter trilogy would be a bit different this time out. The three new beers would all be released in large-format bottles, each a different style but...
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Tidefail
To be honest I wasn't in a big rush to try the third beer from Clearsky, the cuckoo brewery that works (still, I think) out of Hilden in Co. Antrim. The IPA was OK, the weissbier was somewhat ropey, so...
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Gas crack
Happy St. Patrick's Day, readers. I'm celebrating it with all due reverence by getting out of the country for a couple of days, but before I left I made sure to wrap the green flag around me by opening...
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In a black mood
A couple of recently-encountered dark beers today, though their colour is pretty much all they have in common.To begin, a new dunkel lager from White Gypsy called Dark Lady. I think the Irish beer...
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Stranger in a strange land
I found this bottle of Boulevard Tank 7 Farmhouse Ale in Bucharest, of all places, on the beer shelves in a supermarket. Odd, but presumably related to Boulevard of Missouri being, since 2013, a...
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What Touken do
My experience with Breton beers hasn't been great, so when a new set arrived courtesy of my father-in-law last year I didn't exactly lamp into them straight away. They ended up sitting in the back of...
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One of these things is not like the others
Last year I promised myself that for the next Wetherspoon Real Ale Festival I'd go and explore the newer northern branches of the chain in Dublin. Sadly, time constraints last weekend meant that plan...
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No laughing matter
This bottle of Naparbier's Mad Clown pale ale followed me home from the Alltech festival last month where it won Best Pale Ale in the competition there. They've badged it as an "extra" pale ale, and...
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The 'Belly can brief
YellowBelly does cans now. If you've been following Irish beer on the internet or the shelves of the better shops you've probably noticed. The first two out are the Citra Pale Ale and YellowBelly...
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Sticky situation
Perhaps unusually among beer obsessives I have never fantasised about owning my own brewery. But plenty do, and some of them go on to realise that dream, and fair play to them. You do have to feel a...
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Northern powerhouse
One of the beers that really stood out from my trip to northern England last year was North Brewing's Sputnik, a pale ale I met late on a Saturday night at North Bar, the brewery's originating pub in...
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Changing tides
"Imports" is our designated topic for The Session this month, set by our taskmaster Christopher at I Think About Beer. He asks a very specific question of us non-American participants: "How are...
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Hello U
Over the years that I've been attending the Borefts beer festival at the De Molen brewery I'd noticed that many of the other international visitors tend to set up basecamp in nearby Utrecht rather than...
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